Maximize Your Impact

Mentor Training

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MPM IS THE DRIVING FORCE IN THE MENTORING MOVEMENT IN MINNESOTA. WE BRING TOGETHER DIVERSE INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS AROUND TWO STRATEGIC GOALS:

•MPM will Increase Quality Mentoring in Minnesota •MPM is the Leading Champion of Quality Mentoring Across Minnesota

Mentoring Partnership of Minnesota

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3 3 3

Mentor Training Process

1. Listen to this training

module

2. Respond to survey

3. Participate in live training

4. Be a mentor!

April Riordan,

Director of

Training and

Community

Partnerships

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Match items with similar functions

Sustainable, reusable, investment,

valuable, would go back for it, don’t

throw it out, strong, sturdy, durable

Disposable, trash, cheap, lost &

forgotten, thrown out, flimsy, lower

quality, doesn’t last

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Quality = Longer Stronger Matches

Quality Mentors

1. Support organizational & program

values

2. Keep young people safe

3. Understand youth development

4. Use a strength-based, youth-

centered approach

5. Model healthy life skills

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PYD: all young people have strengths

• MENTOR Research In Action; Issue 1 - Mentoring: A Key Resource for Promoting Positive Youth Development;Richard M. Lerner, Ph.D., Aerika S. Brittian, and Kristen E. Fay, Tufts University

Role of mentoring is not to FIX young people

but rather to help them achieve their potential.

http://www.search-institute.org/mentoring

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External Assets

Support

Empowerment

Boundaries

and

Expectations

Constructive

Use of

Time

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Internal Assets

Commitment

to Learning

Positive Values

Social Competencies

Positive Identity

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Maximize Your Impact

Build longer, stronger relationships

• Focus on what is strong not what is wrong

• Pay attention to what mentees would like

for themselves – not just what we think

they need

• Teach and model skills to help young

people carry their baggage better

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Letter to Mama

XXXX XXXXXXX - #### Minnesota Correctional Facility-

Shakopee 1010 West Sixth Avenue Shakopee, MN 55379 Dear Mama, We are writing letters in school

today. My teacher says I am a good speller and that I have nice handwriting. Do you think so?

We had our Valentine Party on Friday. Gramma bought Valentines for me and we sat at the kitchen table and put them together. During the party with all the other 3rd graders, Jessica spilled juice on her Valentines and had to throw them all away. She was so sad. I gave her some of my candy.

I miss you Mama. At parent night, some boys asked me where my mom was and why my Gramma was with me. I told them you were in jail. They asked what you did to go to jail and I just told the truth and said I don’t know.

I wish you could come to my basketball games. I’m really fast and am getting better at shooting.

When can I come visit you again? I miss you. Write me back soon!

Love,

Shayna

*This is a fictitious letter.

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Strong Not Wrong

• Deficit-Based Mentor

Agenda

– Improve basketball

shooting skills

– Seek therapist for mom

issues

– Ask questions about her

father

• Strength-Based Mentor

Agenda

– Attend a basketball game

– Spelling games

– Volunteering

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Darren wants to get better grades

But RIGHT NOW, he wants to play video games and beat the record he set the last time he was at your house. He told you earlier that he has a paper due the day after tomorrow. Which is a more youth centered response?

A.Play video games.

B.Work on the paper.

C.Something in between

D.Both

E.It depends

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Mentors can’t carry it for them-

But mentors CAN teach and

model skills to help young

people carry it BETTER.

B A

G G

A G

E

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Maximize Your Impact

• Your young person plays basketball on her school team. Her basketball teammates are all buying the same pair of basketball shoes for the new season and her old shoes no longer fit. At one of your meetings, she talks to you privately and asks if you can help her out and lend her some money. How can you maximize your impact as a mentor?

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Maximize Your Impact

• Your mentee’s teachers say that he doesn’t listen during class and that when they try to talk to him, he won’t say a word. He started the school year very excited but now hates to go and his grades are suffering. Today, he got suspended after getting in a fist fight with another student. You are scheduled to meet with him tonight. How can you maximize your impact as a mentor?

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Maximize Your Impact

Build longer, stronger relationships

• Focus on what is strong not what is wrong

• Pay attention to what mentees would like

for themselves – not just what we think

they need

• Teach and model skills to help young

people carry their baggage better

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A lost child tells of a dream…

In the dream, he is stuck in a pitch-dark room, helpless and confused, awkwardly feeling his way around. His mentor is there too in the dream, and knows just where the light switch is. But instead of turning it on, the mentor waits, then aims the beam of a flashlight at the switch.

It’s the job of the child to do the rest.

Liu, Eric; Guiding Lights: The People Who Lead Us Toward Our Purpose in Life, Random House, New York, 2004.